“Earlier we were told in written to stop releasing funds to unapproved projects with less than 20 percent expenditure, however, now we have been verbally ordered by the secretary to stop releasing all the funds till further order,” an official source told The Nation here Thursday.

The government wants to rationalise the PSDP funds with an aim to revise it downward and is planning to impose cut on less important, unapproved and slow moving projects.

However, the officials were optimistic that funds would be started to release for the important projects including CPEC and water resources within next few days. However there is no chance of funds release to the slow moving, unapproved or politically motivated projects.

An official said that out of more than 1200 projects reflected in the Federal PSDP, hundreds of projects are either unapproved or have less than 20 percent expenditures.

According to the officials expenditures incurred on 38 projects worth Rs 33762.1 million were of only Rs 7205.9 million till June 2018. “The total allocation for fiscal year 2018-19 of the Ministry of Planning projects is Rs 27590.127 million. However, only Rs821.894 million have been utilised during the first two months of the current fiscal year and majority of projects will see stoppage of funds,” said the officials.

Further elaborating, the officials said Rs 26.5 million had been spent till June 2018 on project of Centre of Excellence for CPEC having a total cost of Rs1215.1 million. The allocation for the said project in 2018-19 was Rs500 million but nothing has spent so far, they added.

Similarly the project of Development Communication, which has total cost of Rs 616.4 million was started in 2015 but has the utilisation of only Rs 183.2 million till June 2018.The allocation for the fiscal 2018-19 was Rs200 million however no utilisation has been made during first two months of the current fiscal year.

The project of the Establishment of Pakistan Urban Planning and Policy Centre which has a total cost of Rs287million but till June 2018 has the total utilization of Rs5 million. Similarly the project has an allocation of Rs 100 million during current fiscal year. However, there is no utilisation during the first two months.

Feasibility Study on Cluster Development Based Mineral Transformation Plan – Vision 2025 (PC-II) has the cost of Rs 62.1 million but has utilised only Rs 0.9m till June 2018. The allocation during current fiscal year is Rs 61.279 million however there was no utilisation till August 31st.

PPMI Centre of Excellence has a total cost of Rs340.6 million and has utilisation of Rs77.2million till June 2018. The allocation for the project in current fiscal year is Rs100 million. However, there is no release of funds so far.

The project of Reform and Innovation in Government for High Performance has a total cost of Rs 1,166 million with only Rs214 million utilisation till June 2018.The total allocation during current fiscal year is Rs150 million but there is no release during first two months of the current fiscal.

The project of Research/Feasibility Studies and Workshops has a total cost of Rs248.6million while the total utilisation till June 2018 is Rs 10 million only. The allocation for the current fiscal year is Rs89.122 million. However there is no release during first two months of the fiscal year.

Technical Studies for Planning Commission has a total cost of Rs110.1milion with the utilisation of Rs4.8 million till June 2018. The allocation for 2018-19 is Rs25 million without but there is no utilization as well during first two months of the fiscal year.

Capacity Building of Officers of Economist Group has a total cost of Rs782.2million with no utilisation till June 2018. The allocation during current fiscal is Rs150 million. However there is not utilisation.